


Heaven's Gate

by romanticalgirl



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted 1-31-07</p>
    </blockquote>





	Heaven's Gate

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 1-31-07

He does not travel much anymore. He is old and worn and tired beyond his years. His bones creak and moan with movement, and he is no longer the man he was. He closes his eyes and wonders, for a brief moment, if he was ever the man he was.

He thinks of the people he’s left behind and how – Maria and Horatio and Maria buried deep beneath the ground, so much dust by now, Barbara confined to her bed, Richard Arthur no doubt arguing with Parliament. He knows he is being selfish by being here. He has never been one to prostrate himself at the feet of the dead, so it is only for his own need that he is here on this soil.

Memories are faulty messengers. He knows this as he walks the river, seeing nothing of what he saw so many years before. The house still stands, though nothing of it remains and he does not recognize the people who mill around the yard. He’s sure there is someone whose name or face should spark remembrance, but there is nothing that he sees and, he realizes, nothing for him here.

The ride is no easier now than it had been before, and he closes his eyes, trying to lose himself in sleep or silence. Instead he hears the rumble of the road and the hooves of the horses and there is no silence, even to his fading ears.

He marks the miles as best he can on land, the shift of ground beneath him still foreign. He leans out and stops the carriage and stares at distant houses and fallen trees and knows that his fears hold true, that life has moved on, moved past him. He waves the driver on and does not disembark, does not look out the window again.

**

He steps on the boat and closes his eyes, inhaling the scent of the sea. This is home to him beyond all else and he cannot help but fall into the sway of its caress. The sail from England has stilled his stomach, and he stands at the rail, hearing the wind and sails instead of the new engines that propel him through the water.

The water slices past him, dark and tangled like his thoughts. He remembers now that he is on the sea, remembers faces and voices and commands so sharp. Remembers honor and duty and mutiny and sacrifice. He remembers sand white beaches and sky blue seas, remembers flying fish and hot shot, remembers hours of nothing and seconds of action. Remembers life. Remembers living. Remembers dying.

He disembarks easily, his legs shaky on the ground. He closes his eyes and hears the distant explosion, feels the haunting trembles. Death is in the silence that follows. Death is always in silence.

“I always fail in building monuments, Mr. Bush.” He thinks of unmarked graves and those that bear his surname. “At least the ones that matter.”

He turns and looks at the water around him, at the land. Nothing is the same and yet it is as though nothing has changed. Perhaps he is as mad as Sawyer, perhaps madness is nothing at all.

He shakes his head and boards the boat again, letting it carry him to its final destination, whatever it may be. Navigation is an art, he knows, and he finds he no longer has the heart for it.  



End file.
